{"id":7225,"date":"2015-06-10T15:23:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T15:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress72\/?p=28103"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:24","slug":"finest-result-in-25-years-for-rotterdam-teams-at-gnsk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2015\/06\/10\/finest-result-in-25-years-for-rotterdam-teams-at-gnsk\/","title":{"rendered":"Finest result in 25 years for Rotterdam teams at GNSK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, a number of Rotterdam teams took the gold during the 2015 Grand Dutch Student Championships (GNSK) held in Amsterdam. Both the women\u2019s and men\u2019s teams of the Antibarbari football club came out tops. And this year, they were joined by the tennis players of Passing Shot, who brought home the title of strongest student tennis team in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

To get to the finals, the Passing Shot team needed to beat rival teams from Nijmegen, Utrecht and Maastricht in the group stage. Each team head-to-head involved a men\u2019s single, women\u2019s single, two doubles and a mixed double: five matches in all.<\/p>\n

According to team captain Edwin Huisman, the tournament actually came off to a bumpy start for the Rotterdam team. \u201cOur first match on Saturday morning was against Nijmegen. Since we thought they\u2019d be one of the weaker opponents, we hadn\u2019t lined up our best combination. Nijmegen proved to be a tougher nut to crack than we expected. Fortunately, we got off with a shock: we ultimately won with 3-2.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beating Utrecht<\/b><\/p>\n

This was followed by the key head-to-head of the group stage, against this year\u2019s favourite Utrecht. \u201cThese matches were actually among the finest we played all weekend.\u201d Mainly thanks to the efforts of Stefan de Jong and Bart van den Berg \u2013 two players also found in the Netherlands\u2019 top 50 \u2013 Passing Shot ultimately \u2018rounded the horn\u2019 with 3-2. After that, Maastricht on Sunday morning no longer posed a threat. Passing Shot sent them packing back home to Limburg with a 5-0 victory. This round was followed by some heated discussions as to which teams qualified for the final. \u201cUtrecht had won more individual games. But we had beaten Utrecht in our head-to-head with them. Ultimately, the tournament rules decided in our favour,\u201d explains Huisman.<\/p>\n

Revenge<\/b><\/p>\n

The other team stepping onto the finals court was Groningen \u2013 a familiar opponent. \u201cIt was an opportunity for us to settle a score, since last year they had beaten us in the finals. We were definitely in the mood for payback. However, this year, Groningen had entered a slightly weaker team than in 2014.\u201d And this quickly became apparent in the final matches, which weren\u2019t exactly electrifying. \u201cWe started with all sails set \u2013 first the singles, followed by the mixed double. These were also our strongest players.\u201d Thanks to the efforts of top players Yvette Vlaar and Lizette Blankers and, once again, De Jong and Van den Berg, by the end of three matches, Groningen had no hope of a recovery, at 3-0 for Rotterdam. The teams decided not to play the remaining matches.<\/p>\n

Rotterdam put in a fine performance at this edition of the GNSK. Three teams won in their respective categories, and in the rugby tournament, RSRC came in a very respectable third. With no fewer than three gold medals, Rotterdam\u2019s results at the 2015 GNSK are the best since 1990. Across the board, however, Nijmegen proved to be the strongest contender in this year\u2019s tournament. ES<\/p>\n\n\t

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